I speak of South Park’s tongue-in-cheek guide (though it is remarkably accurate) for building the perfect money-grabbing freemium mobile game.

The guide appears in the recent episode “Freemium Isn’t Free” (S18E06), in which, well, I won’t spoil it for you in case you want to check it out, but needless to say it’s absolutely freakin’ insane, while making some incredibly well observed points about addiction, psychology and the "whale" model – all in South Park’s inimitable style.

"Can't it at least be fun?" "No, it should be just barely fun!"

Touching on repetitiveness, in-game compliments, the use of multiple currencies in order to confound the player, and the adoption of pay-to-skip waiting times, here’s South Park’s guide to creating a freemium mobile game, brought to you by The Canadian Minister of Mobile Gaming: